They Might Be Giants Mod Club July 23, 2007

Not many bands that released their first album over twenty years ago can say they're still considered hip. Now on their tenth full-length (not including two kids' discs), John Linnell and John Flansburgh brought their They Might Be Giants side-show to Toronto to show off the band's newest and most surprisingly straightforward record, The Else.

While the Malcolm In The Middle theme song experiment vaulted their name into the public eye, They Might Be Giants' fan base has steadfastly consisted of society's outsiders; the geeks, nerds and losers. If one thing is true about this segment of the public, it's that they can be a demanding and picky bunch. Having several hundred songs to choose from for a live performance must be a curse for TMBG, as the sheer girth of their catalog basically guarantees that not a single person in the audience will ever be completely satisfied with what they've heard. The Johns did an admirable job though, cycling through tracks from virtually all of their releases, making sure to hit their most popular numbers, like "Birdhouse In Your Soul" and "Istanbul."

Not content to settle for just a musical performance, the group stopped half way through their set to take a phone call from the dead (in this case, Eleanor Roosevelt). It was obvious that the Johns still have a lot of fun performing; something else that not a lot of twenty-year bands can claim.

(4.5/5)